PIGS-Less EURO at the Door

Natural forces are at work in Europe, powerful forces, in fact forces that are not evident. It is amazing how little the financial analysts notice the forces at all. Since the year 2007, a hidden force began to put pressure on the European Union financial underpinning. Like any fiat currency, the foundation resorts to debt. It came to my attention almost three full years ago that Spanish EuroBonds had a yield slightly higher than the benchmark German. Commentary swirled that the EuroBonds were not homogeneous, and therefore the Euro currency was badly flawed. They were identifiable by the markings on the bond IDs. German EuroBonds carry an ‘X’ in the ID. So the arbitrage professionals went to work, buying the German and selling the Spanish bonds. The flaw was to the structural foundation to the Euro currency, not the market that traded them, surely not the alert speculators. In time, the Greek, Italian, and Portuguese bonds, even the Irish bonds, showed significant separation from the German benchmark. Last December, the Greek bond broke first. Its arrival to the crisis was not part of evolution (natural selection) as much as European tribal leader selection. Greeks are neither Latins nor Teutonics. The bust of the EuroBond structure invites the arrival of a gold-backed currency, urgently needed to provide stability.

A second natural force has arrived in the gigantic bond marketplace. While as many political analysts as financial analysts promote the wisdom of a preserved European Union, and a shared Euro currency across that union, a natural force works to separate the entire group of PIGS nations. Refer to Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain. As much force comes from the Nordic Core power center to push the PIGS nations away from the common European financial structure, as does the force from the PIGS nations to sever ties and go it alone. A German banker contact has repeated an important point on numerous occasions. The European Monetary Union experiment has cost the nation of Germany over $300 billion per year, all for what clearly appears to be a welfare program directed toward the benefit of wasteful inefficient nations not deserving of a low bond yield. After ten years, the cost has been $3 trillion to Germany. It is not a matter of German willingness to continue the Southern Europe Welfare Program, as much as their ability to continue. They cannot continue. They cannot afford it.